Chester Jankowski: music catalogue

Chamber + Electroacoustic

taming the monster Peano curve, 1994.

For amplified violin and horn.

The title is derived from Benoit Mandelbrot's classic treatise, The
Fractal Geometry of Nature. A Peano curve, named for the
Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932), is a curve which represents a
central idea in fractal geometry: a one dimensional object twists
back on itself to fill up two dimensions. The curve is loosely
represented in the piece in several ways. In the first main
section of the piece, the two instruments tend to fill up their
respective pitch-spaces and rhythm-spaces. A tonality will begin
to emerge, but one or both of the instruments will quickly spiral
away. Also in this section there is general disagreement between
the two players as to what kind of music they should play: long
expressive phrases, or quick bursts of energy.

In the second section, the two players decide to cooperate more on matters of
form and style. Tonalities foreshadowed in the previous section
become concrete. We examine material here at different scales,
and find that the closer we look, the more detail emerges. The
violin part is played on an electric violin, which is amplified
and undergoes some signal processing.

The piece was written for vilionist Scott St. John for his Millennium concert
series. Scott performed the premiere, along with James
Sommerville, horn, at the Glenn Gould Studio in CBC's
Broadcasting Centre in Toronto. That performance was later
broadcast on CBC Stereo's The Arts Tonight.